Sunday, August 5, 2012

Paper Butterflies

It is probably no surprise to regular readers of this blog that I would have a collection of patty/muffin/cupcake cases.


I just can't resist those pretty decorated papers. The thing is, I don't make cupcakes or muffins that often. I'm more of a slab of cake kind of a girl.  I do use smaller cases for chocolates and truffles at Christmas and yet, I keep buying more cupcake cases.  Perhaps I think I am going to be asked to cater afternoon tea for 500 and need to be ready, or when sea levels make it to my house, I'll be able to find the kitchen.  Whatever the reason, I have too many cupcakes cases and need to make some room.  The solution - butterflies!


To make the butterflies, I drew a large and a small butterfly shape on a piece of cardboard, and cut them out to make templates.


I chose a selection of cupcake cases in complementary colours and flattened them out with my hand.  I put the templates on the back of the cases and drew around them in pencil.


I cut the butterfly shapes out.


Using craft glue, I glued the smaller shapes down the centre of the larger shapes.  Instant butterflies.


The butterflies can be glued onto gift bags.


Or pinned specimen-style onto a cork pin-up board for decoration.


This post was inspired by some origami paper butterflies I made a few years ago to decorate Christmas presents.  Origami paper works well as it is coloured on both sides.  You can also make butterflies out of wrapping paper or coloured tracing paper.  Different thicknesses of paper do produce different results.  The cupcake case butterfly is quite delicate and flimsy, and would look good on presents wrapped in tissue or crepe-like papers.

2 comments:

Merryn@merrynsmenu said...

These are just cute Lucy. I was admiring pretty cup cake cases in the reject shop and my mother in law said they make great craft flowers. The craft flowers look like 'converted' cup cake cases, however your butterflies are dynamic! I'll give these a go, thank you.

PBS said...

Thanks Merryn. I'm a little obsessed with butterflies at the moment to the extent that I bought a butterfly paper punch last week so I can crank these decorations out more quickly! Another way to use the cup cake cases is to make pom-poms using a similar technique to the one I used in the cascade of hearts post. I thought I might try making some half pom-poms with regular and small-sized wrappers and sticking them onto a gift as 3D decoration. Best wishes for your butterfly making activities!